


After the Sheathed Sword

by ParadoxR



Series: Unto the Breach, Dear Friends [10]
Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: F/M, Friendship, Injury Recovery, Leadership, Mentors
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-23
Updated: 2014-06-23
Packaged: 2018-02-05 22:41:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 3,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1834849
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ParadoxR/pseuds/ParadoxR
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stand-alone (roughly): SG COs and Daniel leading their people after a high-casualty mission in early season 9 (“The Blast of War”).</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Ledge

**Author's Note:**

> This stands alone roughly, but is more meaningful if you read “The Blast of War” and more personal if you try “Like So Many Alexanders” and “Mettle of Your Pasture” (latter includes Mitchell, this doesn’t). Reber and Devlin at the trainees for the open SG-1 slot.

_Sgt. Ferguson cuts off after Reynolds’s confirm radios in, settling in for a long shift. Sam eyes her closely. Hard as a coffin nail and nice as apple pie, but the shift after the storm was often worse on the psyche than the one during it._

_The SG COs share a vibe, studying the GR. “Color Out.” Reynolds command is clear, but he waits patiently._

_“Orange, Recover—Sir.” Qin answers when he can. The infirmary’s the AO now, but the new GR shift is about 2 mikes from full readiness. Most had Ferg’s same look. Sly taps a young soldier on the back, relieving him. He wouldn’t make this shift._

_“Carry On.” The now-orange officers distribute around the Quarterdeck, searching far too many eyes for signs of shock or overwhelm. More backs tapped. Most head to fill the infirmary waiting room. A few haven’t thought to scrub their brothers’ blood from their faces, but the arms that pull around their shoulders don’t mind._

 

Sam scours the waiting room with the rest of the ranking officers, triaging for mental health. _‘Literally talk him off a ledge.’_ It’s standing room only, but they make holes for their COs with too much practiced subconsciousness. Her main marks are the OW guys—Spriggs, and Truong if his team’s still down—but Reber was in bad shape. She finds Devlin, pulling his eyes.

“Ma’am…I…” No one faults each other for tears here. It’s been ingrained in the walls for years, if nothing else.

“You did everything right, Captain.” Sincerely, but it doesn’t matter yet.

“He saved Kelso…” He rises to her eyes. “I don’t want the SG-1 slot.”

“Dev…”

“He’s supposed to beat me.”

“—”

“I _don’t_ _want_ it.”

Sam sighs, unsurprised. “Captain Devlin… Jesse, right now all you need to be worrying about is Orange and your people in there.” She nods him to the door—“Unscheduled Activation!”—

_And that._ They slip back to Gray, and Sam disappears back to the CR. Lou nods as Mike and Al jog past beside her, his arm steadying a lieutenant JG.

“SG-19, Ma’am.” The new Officer of the Deck relays 20 seconds later. Not that they need it; Muller’s shedding his charred jacket onto the Ramp as Kurita quickly knocks soot of Remsin.

“Color Out, Mulle.” Luke looks up at Al, the _‘oh shit’_ after the storm sinking in fully.

“Amber.” His eyes jump immediately to Landry, though he’s not quite fraught. “Sierra Oscar, General?” The major pulls Naser to his bruised-but-functioning legs and takes point to arrival screening without waiting. _Scheisse._

“Approved.” It’s at least 3 seconds late: the looks on the new shifts’ faces are more confirmation than any SG needs. _Get out of the way, go orange, and don’t let your boys hate themselves for missing whatever it was. Pray._

Mike’s already back in the waiting room as Al passes a cursory honorific to Landry.

Sam pauses. “Schedule Oscar – immediate in-check, suspend problem mission, table debrief for orange status.” It’s practical; she’s got enough to do without being annoyed at the inexperience, even if she were tempted to be. _Are you?_ It doesn’t matter. But she should probably stop pretending she doesn’t miss him. _(Just not too much.)_

Not-O’Neill nods at her exit and follows her to the waiting room.


	2. The Third Clock

Every SG has three highly tuned clocks. The first is trained for Gate protocol: making a standard or speed call, Conn delays, timing a dial or manual for a hot Gate, counting how close you can cut an iris closing, hot GDO confirmations, how long you can survive all the GR gases… The second is trained for bogey/bandit interaction: zat windows, dead zones, band breaks, ‘weird’ behavior time before you call a code…

The third? ETA to infirmary waiting room mapped against how SNAFU it’ll be. They don’t train that one.

 

Unfortunately for Daniel and SGs 19, 4 and 35, arrival screening is the absolute best place to practice that particular clock.

 

They’d passed TARFUN for FUBAR 10 minutes ago. And this is Daniel talking.

Dave’s pacing is starting to make him dizzy. The diplomat decides it’s time for an overdramatic sigh. Humor’s a weak recompense.

Dixon almost glares at him before he realizes it’s mis-oriented. _No surprise there._

“ _How_ can you not be worried?”

Daniel doesn’t bother with incredulity. “Of course I am, Dave.” _But you’re not helping._ Mulle’s guys are yellow-tag (Kurita’s green) and rejected all service as soon as Mal stopped Naser’s bloody footprints. Fire at start-up in an Ancient ruin.

And yet Dave’s got three fourth-stringers in the infirmary. Which is decidedly not where he is.

Dixon grimaces and crashes down into a chair that did nothing to deserve it.

 

Jeffries finally reappears. “6 minutes, folks.” And evaporates.

Even Teal’c’s eyebrow is stricken.

 

“No one’s dead yet.” 28 eyes jump to their lieutenant general. “Thought you’d want to know.”

“Mills?” Daniel prods his old friend. Jack looks almost as exhausted as he himself must. _Probably not the news Jack wanted on his first flight back from DC._

“No one’s dead yet.” The tension’s flooding the floor, but at least they’re not drowning yet.

“Sam…”

“I know.”

“We should’ve—”

“ _I know_ , Daniel.” _I know exactly how you feel, damnit. I should have been there, too._

The other 22 eyes cue off Dixon’s clinched jaw. Let it go. They all know.

 

Jack hits a seat in his dress blues. He’s ‘not’-hiding (three-stars don’t hide): this isn’t his base anymore. _Come on, Sam, fix this._


	3. Nothing Else

Kelso and Murph are in the main bay by the time the arrivals get released to the infirmary wing. Actually, most people are in main—patients (fortunately) and, well, everyone. _No one’s dead yet._ _Still._ Dave breaks to Neil in bed 7, lining up next to Al with Sharma.

Daniel looks around. The all-call had clearly gone out: Sam’s ranking cohort is everywhere at once, but the consultants—the remainder of Jack’s era that hadn’t gotten stars—were packed in as well. You’d never know it was 0240 in the morning.

Reber’s in bed 22 of 16 when Daniel comes up next to Devlin. “Dr. Jack-kson.” The captain coughs. The hero.

“Chris,” he smiles weakly, “talk to me.”

Dev’s elbows land on Chris’s bed for the _n_ th time in as many hours. He’s frozen as the older, still young, man raises his right hand.

His not-hand. “It hit an artery. They…there was nothing else to do.”

Daniel succeeds in not visibly reeling at the bandaged stump. _‘What difference does it make? Go! Just go!’ ‘No! Dr. Jackson!!’_

Just like that.

“Guess it’s all you, Jess-man.” Chris’s smile is weak but sincere to his old friend. As old as work-friends get when you’ve got less than three decades to your name.

“It’s your spot. I don’t want the job.”

“Jess—”

“You know you’re better than me.” _I should be on that bed._

“Damn straight.” Chris laughs. “But not now. You gotta go, Dev. They need you.”

“He’s right.” Daniel injects calmly. Too calmly for Dev’s taste.

“You want him, too!”

 _Yes._ “I want to win the war.” Daniel eyes the back of Sam’s head at 19: Bill’s alright with Murph. _Batter up, Sam._ She nods, still reversed. She’s listening, of course. It’s her team.

Dev knows he’s less pissed than he must look to the others. _But you should be the broken one._

“…It should’ve been me.”

Chris balks. It’s never quite clear who’s taking care of whom in the main bay.

“It was me because I was there. It wasn’t you because you weren’t.”

“I’m worth less.”

“Then be worth more, Captain.” Dev’s eyes dart to his CO.

“Ma’am?”

“I think your worth is just fine, Captain. But if you don’t, fix it.”

Jesse Devlin blinks hard. “Ma’am.” The concurrence is solid, but he can’t quite force another word.

She catches the young officer meaningfully, pulling towards the sentence he needs. “You’re here for the same reason everyone is, Dev. Because you’re the best person for the job you do. If you weren’t, you wouldn’t be in it.”

“You know that.” Question.

“I did that, Captain. It wouldn’t do for you to forget it.” _Trust me, Dev. Make it my fault._ How many times had she pulled that burden? The scene repeats all around them.

“See, Jess-o? Now she can kick your ass all by your lonesome. You’ll be ten times better.”

It’s a joke, but Dev’s locked in hard. _Don’t let them down._ A little of the anger trickles out of the world, but everything starts to blur in response.

Daniel’s aura more imprints than actively funnels him into the traffic floating out of the bay. _Decompress, son._ Daniel sighs. It’s no surprise bedside manner directly correlates to SG experience. 


	4. Five Loaves and Two Fish

_Daniel’s aura more imprints than actively funnels him into the traffic floating out of the bay. Decompress, son. Daniel sighs. It’s no surprise bedside manner directly correlates to SG experience._

Reber watches Dev’s retreating form more out of avoidance than out of need.

 

30 seconds staring at the door.

“Ma’am...” His CO’s eyes have more in them than he can process, but almost exactly as much as he needs. _We don’t leave our people behind._ The laugh he expels isn’t quite artificial. “Not to be a burden, but—”

“Research 4, for now, Reb.” He blinks back the tears. “It’s your spot whenever you’re ready.”

“Four?” Nice unit. Really nice. But not…

He’s still staring at his hand 2 mikes later. _You can feel it. It’s right there. _But even the language is detached.

 

…Carter’s found the chair on his other side.

“Ma’am…how do you do it?” _How are you still running?_

Sam watches his vision shift before expressing thoughtfully. _Because you know every inch of your body and every cent of your minds. Because you’ve been there. Everywhere. Because anyone dying is a lot more likely than someone dying. Because you have friends. Because people think you’re more important than you are. Because you have enemies. Because you’ll be back. Because you’ll do anything to be ready. Because you’ll do anything for him. Because you have to. Because you’re lucky. _“Because if it hadn’t been me, it’d’ve been someone else.” Someone else to make eight years of enemies, someone else to get mind-raped and otherwise, to get too big to destroy and too ripe to pass up, to give up the love of their life, someone else to get tortured, someone else to get snaked. “And because I’m lucky.” And because I’m not. “…And that person, they’d be right here beside you, too.”

 

Chris looks at her, now. Really looks at her. Intellectually, he’s always known anyone can pull any SGCer’s ear if they need it—Carter’s, Daniel’s, Bill’s, Reynolds’s, Ferretti’s, Siler’s, Davis’s… they’d all seen too many of Sappers, and far too many women, avoid Mackenzie’s office for Carter’s, noted many a struggling civilian nested between Daniel’s books or Bill’s supercomputers, captains and corporals who’d seen things only Reynolds had… but he’d never actually done it himself.

He’s never thought he’d have to.

 _Ill prepared._ He can tell she sees it, looking back at him. _‘You know it, Captain, any time.’_ Maybe he would’ve been ready now. You’d think 6 years at the SGC he’d have some kind of grasp of his own damn mortality. _Way to go, Chris: you made it exactly not quite long enough._

“Don’t be so hard on yourself.”

He processes slower than he should before refocusing at her.

She smiles. “Most of my job is reading people, Reb. The rest is helping them write.” Especially on days like this. _Triage days._

So she gives him the time she doesn’t have, unflinching under his adrift gaze. The deputy group commander, sitting at his bedside. “I’m not like you, Ma’am.”

“And what makes a person like me, Reb?” _–Being like Jack. Leading like Jack.–_ She kicks her guilt as the young captain answers.

“You’re…” He sighs. “You always know what to do.”

“Captain, you just saved a man from something literally called “lifeless”.” She smiles barely. “The trick is to always do the best you know. That’s all I’ll ever ask.” _Of a 29-year-old without a right hand._ Because perfection can’t be too much to ask here, for life in the breach. Life, and death.

He breathes back at her, furrowed.

 

“I believe in you.”

_She’s been there, Chris. She’s done it, never run from it. She does it every day. _

_For you. _And he’d follow her, every day.

 

He lets her go to spread the wealth.

Fives loaves and two fish.


	5. Stay Alive

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: If you didn’t read “The Blast of War”, Landry denied SG-1 this rescue mission. More on that ‘why’ later. Spriggs (next chapter) ended up with Sam’s job, and Mills had to save his life.

_He lets her go to spread the wealth._

_Fives loaves and two fish._

“Mills is drifting in, Sir.” The nurse directs it to the closest SG CO, but Al’s pace through the door has Sam and Lou at his heels just before Mike catches up.

“Hey, buddy.” They’d let Mike out front automatically, of course. Landry stands back the respectable distance he’d found in the bay.

Kevin’s cough sounds almost friendly.

“Well screw you, too, Marine.” Mike tags his pillow, unable to find a safe place on his body to rib. The major’s smile fights the tape on his nasal cannulas.

“c-carter.”

Sam’s eyebrows jump as she leans around Mike. “Hey, Major. Stay alive, huh?” She smiles.

 “you-rre ok”

Sam tucks her wince beneath her skin, saving her face for her dominant emotions. “I’m good, Mills. Everyone’s going to make it.” _Everyone’s going to make it._

A few stray flecks of blood on her shirt, but none of them her own.

“you were-nt there”

Too little of it her own. “Let’s make that my problem, huh, Kevin?” …She still can’t find what to call him. _What do you call a man you could’ve killed?_

He blinks, confused, but the conversation’s over.

And, boy, did she have that problem.

Mike isn’t looking at her.


	6. The One that Doesn't Care

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Very basic/not quite right Ori spoiler coming up.

_And, boy, did she have that problem._

_Mike isn’t looking at her._

Lou taps her on the shoulder a few hours later, though she barely needs the gesture. They’re both beat, drained emotionally into the hurt and the lost and far more into the many others with the same job. _And emptied into continuing Ops Normal._ Life at the top of the chain. _Once more into the breach._

“Spriggs.” Lou vibes more than whispers. She’d just come back from the GR in anticipation.

 

The young hero’s in his new wheelchair, legs useless but arms mostly intact and shaking. He had lost the finger.

“I’m sorry, Ma’am. I just, I needed to…” Her eyes offer him the understanding before his own focus enough to look for it. _Far too much practice._ Her ninth to never get out of the chair.

“Gleave’s been great” the major nods gently beside him before backing out of the direct line between SG engineer and senior Sapper. “but I just…I wanted to make sure you weren’t…”

“You did everything right, Josh.”

The tension crumples out of him.

 

It takes Sam a split second longer than it should to realize that tension had literally been keeping him in his chair. He doesn’t let her help him as he pushes through onto the floor. It’s clumsy, but he looks so much more relaxed that she waves off the nurse anyway. The ground’s almost always more normal than the wheelchair.

She joins him.

“I hesitated.” He doesn’t bother to stem the tears—one of the few civilian upsides—as he clutches at a wheel.

“You thought, Spriggs. Incredibly well.”

“Major Mills…”

“Is alive.” Sam repeats her internal mantra aloud. One more of the new fast-burns, one more of the brilliant men stepping up as the HWS leadership branched out. One more that’d never go green again.

One more she was supposed to protect.

“Why would he _do_ that?”

Sam swaps the wheel for her shoulder in the young doctor’s grasp. “He did it because he could, Josh.” _He did it because we all would._

“He pushed…” His sob gets most of the room watching more conspicuously than they’d intended. Sam takes his hand from where it’s digging through his bandaged back. “I was too slow.” _They’re bleeding. They’re dying, you idiot! MOVE!_ “Harri…”

“Josh.” she lets her arm onto his shoulders and he almost melds into it. “ _You did everything right._” She watches it sink, timing. “…You are where you are because you’re the best person to be there.”

The 26-year-old sobs towards his worthless legs, one significantly shorter than the other. It’s not sinking. “I wasn’t ready,” a sniff swallows something, either a ‘Sam’ or a ‘Ma’am’. “It shouldn’t have been me at all.”

 _I know._ “Josh—”

“I needed you.”

The blood freezes in her chest.

 

 _Thaw, damnit._ Her brain’s screaming by now but it won’ _–Sam. He needs you.–_

“I know.” The blood’s sludging to Jack’s order, but it still takes everything she has to meet those eyes. _‘I was wrong, Sir.’ ‘It means they’re dead.’_

“Let’s make that my problem, Josh.” His eyes get somehow wetter. “Can you do that for me, ‘Cap?” He nods eventually, diligent but sincere. She knows she’s visibly relieved. Not that she should be—she’s ‘robbing Peter’ far too much today.

 

“It’s Kalie’s birthday.” He’s leaning back on the chair now, and she throws the wheel lock on unconsciously. “Neil’s daughter.” Though she hadn’t needed the clarification.

“Yeah.”

“He’d be ther—” She catches him. Pulls him back. _He’d be dead without you, Josh, and you know it._

 _And he’d be walking, with you_ she tags internally.

Josh follows her back anyway, barely. (They all tend to; she’ll never understand how she earned it.) He doesn’t sense the tightness of his grip as his head crashes back into the seat and the last of his fears for the hour tumbles out.

“That Ori thing, you know.” His cackle is almost maniacal, but she stops the flinch. “Feeding on fear?” _Because aren’t you looking forward to that, too._ “They’re gonna have a field day with me.” His sound is just miserable to start, but drops further as what he says sinks in.

 

The cackle’s wetter this time. “Courage, Ma’am:” he reports, still wishing he’d followed his dad into the Army, “when being afraid’s just your secret.” _Maybe you’d be better if you had. Taller._

Sam plasters a smile over her own fears, upwelling to her feet. “Yikes.” He baits at that. “That’s not how _I_ do it.” She pulls the grounded doctor back to his new seat, smiling genuinely at the little curiosity she’d called back up into his eyes. “You don’t have to be the only one that knows you’re scared, Josh.

“You just have to be the one that doesn’t care.”


End file.
